Current Events > Why are the Song of Ice and Fire books so good?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I just started A Clash of Kings. Two pages in and Im hooked again. The way G.R.R.M. writes is very enticing.
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Interestin characters, interesting setting, no over use of fantasy elements so it's easy to relate (at least at first). Later books suffer cause he focuses on a small part of the cast (not the fan favorites, imo).
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The way he writes? I thought he was a fantasy writer.
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DuranOfForcena posted...

Deadpool_18 posted...

The way G.R.R.M. writes is very enticing.

it's a product of his time writing television scripts and pilots in the 80s. each chapter is almost like a scene, and they are structured mostly to end on a point of intrigue or interest that makes you want to stay through the "commercial break" as it were and find out what happens next. always leave the reader wanting more. it is indeed a very effective way of keeping a reader invested.

I wish more writers did this. Stephen King is good at this technique. Thanks for explaining!
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He has a great talent for inner voices when writing his characters. He's also fantastic at world building.

This is why he writes so damned slow.
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My only beef is the overly long descriptions of food and clothing. Joffrey's wedding made me rage, like Jesus man, shut the fuck up about embroidery.
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That's surprising to hear, since I was told it's like lotr in that there's pages upon pages of him just describing the scenery and people walking/riding/doing stuff with no dialogue
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saspa posted...

That's surprising to hear, since I was told it's like lotr in that there's pages upon pages of him just describing the scenery and people walking/riding/doing stuff with no dialogue

Thing is, he says quite a lot without dialogue. The thoughts of the characters are just as interesting.
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ScazarMeltex posted...

My only beef is the overly long descriptions of food and clothing. Joffrey's wedding made me rage, like Jesus man, shut the fuck up about embroidery.

Lmao havent gotten there yet. Im currently with Maester Cressen watching the comet.
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ScazarMeltex posted...

My only beef is the overly long descriptions of food and clothing. Joffrey's wedding made me rage, like Jesus man, shut the fuck up about embroidery.

The food sounds amazing tho

The first 3 are good, the rest are borderline terrible.

Im not sure I can really describe what makes some books so addicting. It has to do with how completely they immerse me in another world. I dont exist anymore.
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DuranOfForcena posted...

cmiller4642 posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

My only beef is the overly long descriptions of food and clothing. Joffrey's wedding made me rage, like Jesus man, shut the fuck up about embroidery.

The food sounds amazing tho

it does, and the descriptions of it and other things serve a purpose. when you read paragraphs worth of descriptions about opulent 77 course wedding feasts with roasted capons dripping with grease and pease porridge in a pool of butter and lemon cakes and lamprey pies and all that stuff that the nobility eats, and then you read about the pot shops down in Fleabottom that serve bowls of brown, the meat in which you don't want to look too closely at or speculate about, it serves to underscore the massive class divide and really put the reader into the societal mindset of the setting.

I loved the way the small towns and inns are described too. The show kind of takes away from the world itself. There's a chapter in Dance With Dragons where Tyrion walks across a crowded bridge in Essos (his first visit to the continent) and it describes in detail all of the exotic and strange things that he sees.

Book 3 is probably my favorite book of all time. Last few chapters are all bangers, each surpassing the last somehow.
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ScazarMeltex posted...

My only beef is the overly long descriptions of food and clothing. Joffrey's wedding made me rage, like Jesus man, shut the fuck up about embroidery.

Robert Jordan, a major contemporary of Martin, in a addition to getting a nod In Asoiaf as Sir Jordan of the Tor, would literally write whole pages describing a bodice.
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His first three books are amazing.

The entire series falls apart after Storm of Swords
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just wait till you get to book 3. you wont be able to put it down

DuranOfForcena posted...

cmiller4642 posted...

ScazarMeltex posted...

My only beef is the overly long descriptions of food and clothing. Joffrey's wedding made me rage, like Jesus man, shut the fuck up about embroidery.

The food sounds amazing tho

it does, and the descriptions of it and other things serve a purpose. when you read paragraphs worth of descriptions about opulent 77 course wedding feasts with roasted capons dripping with grease and pease porridge in a pool of butter and lemon cakes and lamprey pies and all that stuff that the nobility eats, and then you read about the pot shops down in Fleabottom that serve bowls of brown, the meat in which you don't want to look too closely at or speculate about, it serves to underscore the massive class divide and really put the reader into the societal mindset of the setting.

Oh I agree, that it serves a purpose and does it admirably, but he covers it so much over the course of the series that it gets old after a bit.
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ScazarMeltex posted...

My only beef is the overly long descriptions of food and clothing. Joffrey's wedding made me rage, like Jesus man, shut the fuck up about embroidery.

No, you shut up. The longest food description in the entire series is three sentences.
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PhazonReborn posted...

His first three books are amazing.

The entire series falls apart after Storm of Swords

I disagree, even though I will say Storm is the best. There is a ton of good shit in Feast and Dance, but a lot of people don't even notice them
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just wait till you get to book 3. you wont be able to put it down

a few years ago i started rereading asos on a whim and didnt stop until i realized i was almost 100 pages in, and i say this as someone who usually only reads 1-2 chapters in one sitting
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Bad_Mojo posted...

PhazonReborn posted...

His first three books are amazing.

The entire series falls apart after Storm of Swords

I disagree, even though I will say Storm is the best. There is a ton of good shit in Feast and Dance, but a lot of people don't even notice them

You'll have to remind me because I literally remember nothing compelling about that novel.
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Didn't he steal all his work from some other writer and ran out of source material so that's why he can't finish the books
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They're not. There is a lot of unnecessary padding. You could cut 300-odd pages from each book and not lose anything of value.
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glitteringfairy posted...

Didn't he steal all his work from some other writer and ran out of source material so that's why he can't finish the books

Not that I've heard.

008Zulu posted...

They're not. There is a lot of unnecessary padding. You could cut 300-odd pages from each book and not lose anything of value.

Each book? No

The last two? Probably
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PhazonReborn posted...

You'll have to remind me because I literally remember nothing compelling about that novel.

The world building is there if you want to get into it. I don't really want to get into a huge spoiler filled post, but there is a lot of minor things in the series that are not on the surface level, and it's there for people that like that sort of stuff (like me), but the series on the surface level it works really as well, but if you don't care like the minor things like I do, then I get why you wouldn't like the last two books as much. And that's fine

I'm just giving my opinion because I like the world building, I have read all the novellas many, many times. I've read the Targaryen world building books, I've even read Fire and Blood twice now. I like that stuff, and GRRM is really good at that sort of stuff, and now as I re-read Feast and Dance right now, I have a better understand what GRRM was doing back then, and it actually all fits, unlike something from the Potter verse for example, where she just changes her own world on a wim.

Not trying to make you like the series more, I just really love it
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The last two books are really good if you use that chapter reading order that puts them more or less in chronological order.
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They're not.

I liked the last two books. Feast was the weaker of the two but it's still pretty good.